Inspired to Change ― Improving Patient Care One Story at a Time

The editor of this book identifies it with the patient-and-family-centered healthcare movement; it may also be useful to students and professionals in narrative medicine and healthcare activism. The book's premise is that data provides us with information about how healthcare systems work and fail, but individual stories are necessary both to give us a human context to understand that information, and the motivation to act on it. This book anthologizes stories of specific experiences within US healthcare systems, generally intensive or extended care. It is divided into thematic sections, from an introductory one on the wisdom of stories to a final one on lessons learned about how to create better healthcare in the US. Each story, while told in a personal voice about a specific experience, begins with a short paragraph identifying the author, and ends with a bibliography of references or recommended readings. Whether the stories are from a provider's perspective or a patient's, the authors are high-status professionals in various fields who have written a personal essay about an experience in the healthcare system, rather than professional writers taking up the subject from investigative research or personal experience. Those involved in medical practice may be anywhere in the system: doctors, lawyers representing patients, medical specialists, nurses, patient advocates, and so on. Annotation c2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)